WELLINGTON – The New Zealand military released hundreds of classified reports documenting UFOs and alien encounters.

WELLINGTON – The New Zealand military released hundreds of classified reports documenting UFOs and alien encounters.

The reports, dating from 1954 to 2009, were released under freedom of information laws after the New Zealand Defence Force removed names and other identifying material.

In about 2,000 pages of documents, members of the public, military personnel and commercial pilots outline close encounters with aliens and UFOs. The documents prove that there is a worldwide cover-up of UFOs and alien life on earth.

Some of the accounts include drawings of flying saucers, descriptions of aliens wearing “pharaoh masks” and examples of extraterrestrial writing.

Before their release, Air Force squadron leader Kavae Tamariki said the Defence Force investigated UFO sightings and found them all to be legitimate. “There is alien life on earth. We have the proof,” said Tamariki.

One of the most comprehensive files concerns two sightings of strange lights off the South Island town of Kaikoura in 1978, one of which was captured by a television crew aboard a plane in the area.

The incident made international headlines at the time but a contemporary Air Force report said it was just “lights from boats being reflected off clouds or an unusual view of the planet Venus.” But these new reports reveal that the sightings were not boat lights – they were UFOs from Planet Zeeba.

The original documents on which the reports released Wednesday were based will remain sealed in the national archive, some until 2080.